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For 150 Years, Fordham Baseball’s Tradition of Winning

Frankie Frisch, the Fordham Flash, held the teams single-season steals record for 67 years and played 19 seasons in the majors.Credit
Associated Press

The team with the most victories in college baseball history practiced energetically Thursday. Players ran from behind the batting cage to the plate to take their swings, outfielders dashed after fly balls and infielders vacuumed up grounders. The practice had a nice rhythm.

This scene did not occur in California, Florida or Texas, places where college baseball is in the spotlight. It occurred on a cool afternoon in the Bronx, six subway stops away from Yankee Stadium. It happened at Fordham University, the humble home of the team that surprisingly has the most wins of any N.C.A.A. Division I baseball program.

And it is not close. Fordham has 4,010 wins; Texas is second with 3,117. Of course, Fordham had a huge head start since it began playing baseball 150 years ago, which was 36 seasons before Texas did and more than half a century before many other teams. Still, Fordham proudly relishes having more victories than elite programs like Stanford and Miami.

“It’s truly an enviable record,” Fordham Coach Nick Restaino said. “We talk about that with our players all the time, from the recruiting process until they get in the program. We want them to be proud of it and to make sure that it continues.”

As an ode to Fordham’s first game on Nov. 3, 1859, the Rams will play Williams College, which also played its first game 150 years ago, on Tuesday. The Rev. Joseph M. McShane, Fordham’s president and the man who conceived the idea for the game, will toss out the first pitch on the Rose Hill campus in the Bronx. Fordham was trying to entice Hal Steinbrenner, a co-chairman of the Yankees and a graduate of Williams, to throw a second pitch.

The Fordham players have “150 years” patches on the left sleeves of their uniform jerseys as a link to the famous names of the past. The roll call starts with Frankie Frisch, the Fordham Flash, who held the program’s single-season stolen base record for 67 years, played 19 seasons in the major leagues and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

No one can outdo Frisch’s alliterative nickname, but Jack Coffey, who played and coached at Fordham, has his own neat distinction as the only player to be a teammate of Babe Ruth’s and Ty Cobb’s in the same season. Then there is Gil McDougald, a former Yankees All-Star who coached at Fordham; Esteban Bellan, who was the first Cuban and the first Latin American to play professional baseball; and Vin Scully, an outfielder who wound up doing more with his silky voice than with his arm or legs.

In an interview on Fordham’s Web site, Scully recalled how he hit one home run in his “inglorious career.” Scully said he swung left-handed and was quick to explain that “I didn’t say I hit left-handed.” In a game against Yale, Scully competed against George H.W. Bush. When Scully played golf with the former President Bush decades later, he reminded him that they each went 0 for 3.

Photo

Before he became the voice of the Dodgers, Vin Scully was an outfielder for Fordham, the most victorious team in Division I.Credit
Fordham University

“I loved every minute of it,” Scully said in the interview. “I loved my teammates. We had so much fun, and it was definitely a good portion of my memory bank in those wonderful years on the Fordham campus.”

Restaino, who graduated from Fordham in 1993, said he did not know the details of the team’s rich tradition as a student. Now that he is in his fifth season as the coach, Restaino said that even the most ardent college fans often did not know Fordham’s elevated place in history. These days, Restaino said with a laugh, he was more likely to be asked if he met Bono when U2 played a show at Fordham last month than he was to be asked about the team’s victory total. For the record, Restaino met Bono.

“I was standing there when his car pulled up,” Restaino said. “He said hello.”

The Rams, who are 10-17 over all and 6-3 in the Atlantic 10 Conference, are competitive, but they are far from being among college baseball’s elite. Fordham has not qualified for the N.C.A.A. tournament since 1998. Still, the Rams have had 10 players selected in the amateur draft in the last four years and have averaged 30 wins a season in that time.

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Fordham is celebrating the 150th anniversary of its initial game, but this is the university’s 149th season. Play was suspended for World War II in 1944. In the first 148 seasons, Fordham had 19 losing records. There have been 56 players from Fordham to appear in the majors, but only four in the last 45 years.

To commemorate the anniversary, Fordham tried to schedule games against Williams and Amherst College. Those two Division III universities played the first college game, on July 1, 1859. But Williams and Amherst played under “the Massachusetts rules,” a much more wide-open style than today’s game. According to the Baseball Almanac, the teams used 10 to 14 players in the field, there was no foul territory and there was one out per half inning. Amherst won, 73-32.

When St. John’s College, Fordham’s original name, opposed St. Francis Xavier College a few months later, they played the first college game featuring nine-man teams. The Rose Hills, as Fordham was known, won, 33-11. Fordham and Amherst will not play; Fordham is meeting Williams for the third time ever.

“It’s very cool to be part of that history,” pitcher J. P. Mack said.

During Fordham’s practice, the loudest sound came when a coach screeched, “Base-ball!” to some outfielders. He was reminding them to retrieve a foul ball. Even the most victorious program in history must collect stray baseballs.

Restaino acknowledged that a major reason for Fordham’s victory record was “because we were around before other people,” but he stressed that the Rams had had sustained success, too.

Restaino said he searched for “teachable moments” with his players and called himself an educator. At Fordham, history lessons are always appropriate.

“I tell them, Listen, for the rest of your lives, you’ll be able to look back and remember that you were a part of the 150th year,” Restaino said. “It’s a special year.”

Correction: April 13, 2009

An article last Monday about the Fordham University baseball program’s success since beginning play in 1859 reversed the outcome of the first intercollegiate game, earlier that year, between Amherst College and Williams College. Amherst won.